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Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
Power among the few
Email Printer friendly version Normal font Large font Future in
question ¦ Recep Tayyip Erdogan throws carnations to supporters at an
election rally last year.
July 5, 2008
A group of young factory owners and managers gather in the Boydak
family's summer villa to explain to a foreign visitor how their
fast-transforming city fits into the changes of their homeland,
Turkey.
The setting is Kayseri, an Anatolian city known in Roman times as
Caesarea, and now a base for at least 1000 factories employing 112,000
workers, churning out products sent out across Europe, the Middle East
and Central Asia - a market of 800 million people within three days'
shipment.
The Boydaks' are the biggest. From a local shop in 1957, the family
has built a furniture group with $US3 billion ($3.1 billion) annual
sales and 15,000 workers. It is now run by a third-generation scion,
Erol Boydak, 30.
Unlike their grandfathers and fathers, Erol Boydak and his
industrialist friends are worldly and English-speaking, in many cases
returned from universities in the United States or Turkey's big
cities, but still conservative in lifestyle. No alcohol is served at
our gathering, and the wives, wearing headscarves, remain in the
kitchen, sending out an endless supply of pastries, nuts, fruits and
tea.
Located inland under a permanently snow-capped mountain, Kayseri is
baking hot in summer, freezing in winter. Boydak points to its
tradition as the western terminus of the Silk Road, now echoed in
Turkey's advantage over distant East Asian rivals in an era of rising
transport costs and just-in-time logistics.
"It's a tough area. The land is not very good. You need to work to
live; you have to get ready for the winter," adds Osman Koseoglu, the
factory manager for a telecom company, Kumtel. "Working is the
lifestyle here. Whenever you see someone is not working, he is
rejected from society."
The rise of industrial cities such as Kayseri, often called the
"Anatolian tigers", has created a wider transformation in
Turkey. Economic power has shifted from ancient Istanbul and the
temperate Sea of Marmara region, and political power has followed. A
new class of rich family industrialists and their workers moving into
the burgeoning high-rise apartments of places such as Kayseri are
tilting the politics of the secular republic founded by Kemal Ataturk
in 1923.
In the past month, the resulting conflict between old and new orders
has moved closer to boiling point, threatening turmoil in a country
regarded as a pro-Western pillar of stability for the Middle East.
In Turkey, the moderately Islamist government - elected by the rising
Anatolian middle class with a 46.5 per cent popular vote only a year
ago - is defending itself in a Constitutional Court stacked with
stalwarts of army-backed secularism. It faces a ruling that would see
its political vehicle, the Justice and Development Party, or AKP,
banned and 71 leading figures including the Prime Minister, Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, and the President, Abdullah Gul, barred from political
office for five years.
The court's overturning last month of the parliament's recent
legislation allowing female students to wear the Islamic headscarf at
government universities is widely regarded as an indication the court
will ban the party. "If they start this process, they will finish it,
and they will close down the AKP," says Bulent Kenes, the editor of
the English edition of Turkey's biggest-selling newspaper, Zaman.
Another newspaper, Taraf, has published an apparent secret army
spreadsheet entitled "Comprehensive Plan of Action" outlining moves
involving the military, judiciary, university rectors and secularist
media to undermine what is called a "religious reactionary
movement". Earlier, it reported that the deputy chief justice of the
Constitutional Court, Osman Paksut, had secretly met Turkey's land
forces commander, General Ilker Basbug, a few days before prosecutors
filed the case to ban the AKP.
Paksut at first denied the meeting, then said he had met Basbug, who
is widely expected to become chief of general staff next month, simply
to "congratulate" the army on its recent cross-border strikes against
Kurdish separatists in Iraq. Neither explained why the entire floor
around Basbug's office had to be cleared for this innocent meeting and
security cameras turned off.
Many analysts paint the contest as one between "government" and
"state", which have diverged since the rise of widely based party
politics in the past couple of decades has challenged the guardians of
the state: principally the army - answerable only to military justice
- and judicial bodies that jail perceived challengers to secularism
and "Turkishness".
The AKP and its leaders, Erdogan and Gul (who comes from Kayseri),
reflect the small-town piety of their Anatolian base, rather than the
cosmopolitanism of Istanbul or Ankara. But they make unlikely
Islamists, as painted by prosecutors in their lengthy charge
sheet. Indeed, they have worked hard since first elected in 2002 to
shape up Turkey for entry to the European Union.
Sanar Yurdatapan, 67, composes popular music and is a veteran of
Turkey's left. He spent 12 years exiled in Germany and now runs a
group called Initiative for Freedom of Expression. An atheist, he has
little sympathy for the AKP. "It's impossible for such a mind to be
honest in human rights affairs," he says. "Their mind comes up to a
certain extent and then they stop, because they look at the Book, and
they say: The Book orders, I cannot discuss further."
But he argues that the party's Islamism is a political
colouring. "They will not change the system," he says. "They're using
religion to take votes but they're ready to give it up in order to get
their position."
The real fight, he says, is about the loss of power faced by the old
elites, resulting from the collapse of Soviet communism, and the push
by business to join the EU.
An earlier attempt to derail the AKP failed last year. The army
promoted mass demonstrations against lifting the headscarf ban, and
the Constitutional Court blocked a move to appoint Gul as president on
a dubious ruling about parliamentary quorums. Erdogan called a general
election last July and won a bigger vote. Gul was made president in
August.
#Piqued generals initially refused to salute Gul, but have since
steadily undermined the Government indirectly. The cross-border
campaign in Iraq, to which Erdogan reluctantly agreed to avoid
appearing weak on national security, undermines the AKP's substantial
Kurdish vote. A brutal police show of force at May 1 worker parades
alienated leftists.
An AKP ban would strengthen the view of Europe's right that Turkey is
not democratic enough for the EU. "They are playing a football game
giving points to the other side," Yurdatapan says. "They are trying
their best so that Turkey will be out of Europe and they can keep
their controls on society."
Part of Erdogan's response has been an investigation into an
ultra-nationalist group known as Ergenekon, named after the founding
myth of the Turks, which says they were led out of Central Asia to
their present homeland by a grey wolf. The group is said to originate
in the Turkish Army's version of the "stay-behind" resistance
structures set up by several NATO countries in the 1950s in case of
Soviet invasion, and it is blamed for provocative attacks over the
years variously attributed to communists, Kurds or Islamists.
In January, prosecutors began waves of arrests that included retired
generals and colonels, a nationalist lawyer known for prosecuting
writers for questioning the official history of the 1915 massacre of
Armenians, an elder columnist for the secularist newspaper Cumhuriyet
(and said to be the ideologue of Ergenekon), and a retired Istanbul
University rector who has opposed a Cyprus settlement backed by
Erdogan, who wants Turkey's 1974 invasion of the island removed as an
obstacle to EU membership.
One former colonel was alleged to have paid an assassin to kill the
Nobel laureate writer Orhan Pamuk. This week prosecutors arrested 21
others, including two former generals.
The army has toppled four civilian governments in the past 50 years,
the most recent a "soft coup" in 1997 that ousted another government
deemed too Islamist. So far, it seems to be relying on the
Constitutional Court to do the job. But that will not be the end of
it. The AKP is an avatar of an earlier Islamist party, Virtue, that
was also banned. Erdogan has kept parliament sitting through the
summer recess and is ready to call a snap election if there is a ban.
Most expect the party to rebadge, and few seem concerned at 71 of its
leaders being banned. "We chose the AKP and we will choose the new
party," says Huseyin Cahit Canitez, another Kayseri industrialist. "We
will find new leaders. If Abdullah Gul goes, we will find 'Mustapha
Gul'."
Yet Turks are worried. "It it will be a big mistake if it happens,"
Canitez says. "Maybe it will set back Turkey by five years. That is
something people in the army and the judiciary may not understand. But
while they are only 4 or 5 per cent of the population, they have a lot
of power."
Hamish McDonald visited Turkey as guest of the business federation TUSKON.
Power among the few
Email Printer friendly version Normal font Large font Future in
question ¦ Recep Tayyip Erdogan throws carnations to supporters at an
election rally last year.
July 5, 2008
A group of young factory owners and managers gather in the Boydak
family's summer villa to explain to a foreign visitor how their
fast-transforming city fits into the changes of their homeland,
Turkey.
The setting is Kayseri, an Anatolian city known in Roman times as
Caesarea, and now a base for at least 1000 factories employing 112,000
workers, churning out products sent out across Europe, the Middle East
and Central Asia - a market of 800 million people within three days'
shipment.
The Boydaks' are the biggest. From a local shop in 1957, the family
has built a furniture group with $US3 billion ($3.1 billion) annual
sales and 15,000 workers. It is now run by a third-generation scion,
Erol Boydak, 30.
Unlike their grandfathers and fathers, Erol Boydak and his
industrialist friends are worldly and English-speaking, in many cases
returned from universities in the United States or Turkey's big
cities, but still conservative in lifestyle. No alcohol is served at
our gathering, and the wives, wearing headscarves, remain in the
kitchen, sending out an endless supply of pastries, nuts, fruits and
tea.
Located inland under a permanently snow-capped mountain, Kayseri is
baking hot in summer, freezing in winter. Boydak points to its
tradition as the western terminus of the Silk Road, now echoed in
Turkey's advantage over distant East Asian rivals in an era of rising
transport costs and just-in-time logistics.
"It's a tough area. The land is not very good. You need to work to
live; you have to get ready for the winter," adds Osman Koseoglu, the
factory manager for a telecom company, Kumtel. "Working is the
lifestyle here. Whenever you see someone is not working, he is
rejected from society."
The rise of industrial cities such as Kayseri, often called the
"Anatolian tigers", has created a wider transformation in
Turkey. Economic power has shifted from ancient Istanbul and the
temperate Sea of Marmara region, and political power has followed. A
new class of rich family industrialists and their workers moving into
the burgeoning high-rise apartments of places such as Kayseri are
tilting the politics of the secular republic founded by Kemal Ataturk
in 1923.
In the past month, the resulting conflict between old and new orders
has moved closer to boiling point, threatening turmoil in a country
regarded as a pro-Western pillar of stability for the Middle East.
In Turkey, the moderately Islamist government - elected by the rising
Anatolian middle class with a 46.5 per cent popular vote only a year
ago - is defending itself in a Constitutional Court stacked with
stalwarts of army-backed secularism. It faces a ruling that would see
its political vehicle, the Justice and Development Party, or AKP,
banned and 71 leading figures including the Prime Minister, Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, and the President, Abdullah Gul, barred from political
office for five years.
The court's overturning last month of the parliament's recent
legislation allowing female students to wear the Islamic headscarf at
government universities is widely regarded as an indication the court
will ban the party. "If they start this process, they will finish it,
and they will close down the AKP," says Bulent Kenes, the editor of
the English edition of Turkey's biggest-selling newspaper, Zaman.
Another newspaper, Taraf, has published an apparent secret army
spreadsheet entitled "Comprehensive Plan of Action" outlining moves
involving the military, judiciary, university rectors and secularist
media to undermine what is called a "religious reactionary
movement". Earlier, it reported that the deputy chief justice of the
Constitutional Court, Osman Paksut, had secretly met Turkey's land
forces commander, General Ilker Basbug, a few days before prosecutors
filed the case to ban the AKP.
Paksut at first denied the meeting, then said he had met Basbug, who
is widely expected to become chief of general staff next month, simply
to "congratulate" the army on its recent cross-border strikes against
Kurdish separatists in Iraq. Neither explained why the entire floor
around Basbug's office had to be cleared for this innocent meeting and
security cameras turned off.
Many analysts paint the contest as one between "government" and
"state", which have diverged since the rise of widely based party
politics in the past couple of decades has challenged the guardians of
the state: principally the army - answerable only to military justice
- and judicial bodies that jail perceived challengers to secularism
and "Turkishness".
The AKP and its leaders, Erdogan and Gul (who comes from Kayseri),
reflect the small-town piety of their Anatolian base, rather than the
cosmopolitanism of Istanbul or Ankara. But they make unlikely
Islamists, as painted by prosecutors in their lengthy charge
sheet. Indeed, they have worked hard since first elected in 2002 to
shape up Turkey for entry to the European Union.
Sanar Yurdatapan, 67, composes popular music and is a veteran of
Turkey's left. He spent 12 years exiled in Germany and now runs a
group called Initiative for Freedom of Expression. An atheist, he has
little sympathy for the AKP. "It's impossible for such a mind to be
honest in human rights affairs," he says. "Their mind comes up to a
certain extent and then they stop, because they look at the Book, and
they say: The Book orders, I cannot discuss further."
But he argues that the party's Islamism is a political
colouring. "They will not change the system," he says. "They're using
religion to take votes but they're ready to give it up in order to get
their position."
The real fight, he says, is about the loss of power faced by the old
elites, resulting from the collapse of Soviet communism, and the push
by business to join the EU.
An earlier attempt to derail the AKP failed last year. The army
promoted mass demonstrations against lifting the headscarf ban, and
the Constitutional Court blocked a move to appoint Gul as president on
a dubious ruling about parliamentary quorums. Erdogan called a general
election last July and won a bigger vote. Gul was made president in
August.
#Piqued generals initially refused to salute Gul, but have since
steadily undermined the Government indirectly. The cross-border
campaign in Iraq, to which Erdogan reluctantly agreed to avoid
appearing weak on national security, undermines the AKP's substantial
Kurdish vote. A brutal police show of force at May 1 worker parades
alienated leftists.
An AKP ban would strengthen the view of Europe's right that Turkey is
not democratic enough for the EU. "They are playing a football game
giving points to the other side," Yurdatapan says. "They are trying
their best so that Turkey will be out of Europe and they can keep
their controls on society."
Part of Erdogan's response has been an investigation into an
ultra-nationalist group known as Ergenekon, named after the founding
myth of the Turks, which says they were led out of Central Asia to
their present homeland by a grey wolf. The group is said to originate
in the Turkish Army's version of the "stay-behind" resistance
structures set up by several NATO countries in the 1950s in case of
Soviet invasion, and it is blamed for provocative attacks over the
years variously attributed to communists, Kurds or Islamists.
In January, prosecutors began waves of arrests that included retired
generals and colonels, a nationalist lawyer known for prosecuting
writers for questioning the official history of the 1915 massacre of
Armenians, an elder columnist for the secularist newspaper Cumhuriyet
(and said to be the ideologue of Ergenekon), and a retired Istanbul
University rector who has opposed a Cyprus settlement backed by
Erdogan, who wants Turkey's 1974 invasion of the island removed as an
obstacle to EU membership.
One former colonel was alleged to have paid an assassin to kill the
Nobel laureate writer Orhan Pamuk. This week prosecutors arrested 21
others, including two former generals.
The army has toppled four civilian governments in the past 50 years,
the most recent a "soft coup" in 1997 that ousted another government
deemed too Islamist. So far, it seems to be relying on the
Constitutional Court to do the job. But that will not be the end of
it. The AKP is an avatar of an earlier Islamist party, Virtue, that
was also banned. Erdogan has kept parliament sitting through the
summer recess and is ready to call a snap election if there is a ban.
Most expect the party to rebadge, and few seem concerned at 71 of its
leaders being banned. "We chose the AKP and we will choose the new
party," says Huseyin Cahit Canitez, another Kayseri industrialist. "We
will find new leaders. If Abdullah Gul goes, we will find 'Mustapha
Gul'."
Yet Turks are worried. "It it will be a big mistake if it happens,"
Canitez says. "Maybe it will set back Turkey by five years. That is
something people in the army and the judiciary may not understand. But
while they are only 4 or 5 per cent of the population, they have a lot
of power."
Hamish McDonald visited Turkey as guest of the business federation TUSKON.